New Subject: Food

A new topic addition with my return to the "blogworld"...FOOD. My food. Your food. Our food....no...MY FOOD.
I recently bought myself an present and an investment. I purchased a somewhat expensive set of cookware. I researched for over a week on the internet comparing brands and "greenness" and adjusting my priorities of what was important to me. I read review after review and even took an exploratory trip over to Bed Bath and Beyond so I could see the pots and pans up close and in person. I wanted to see them, touch them, feel them (hi, Tommy! - I never actually saw the movie, though) not just look at them on Amazon on my laptop screen. So, with no intention of purchasing that day, I went and looked. Then I dared to ask the sales guy (after all, what would HE know? He was a DUDE and this was cookware! This was gonna be a trick question! More fun for me!) what he thought the best cookware was. He shows me two lines of one brand and of course (wouldn't you know it???), it's some of the most expensive stuff in there! Duh, of course it is...he's a "SALESMAN" and it's his J-O-B!!!! Duh.
Okay, well I kept the conversation and questions going and of course they (coincidentally) are having a few extra sales incentives going on (I almost felt like I was buying a car!) and he made some really good points and told me about his experience with his set...and it freaking works on me! DAAAMMMMMIT!!!!!!! He got me!!! Well, at least I must say that I did exercise the self control to leave the building without any purchases...only to run home to get on the computer and start researching MOOOOOORE!
I returned the next afternoon pretty set on what I was going to buy (and even had a friend running "text [emotional] support". Jack Bauer has Chloe to help him save the world from a "new-que-luhr" catastrophe and I need help purchasing a...pan). I started talking to another sales dude in the cookware section (thinking I would see what HIS answers were and compare them) and it was pretty much the same. So with text support in hand, I committed to the set, my free extra pan plus my gift card reward. Of course, if I just spent a little more on the same brand, I could get ANOTHER gift card reward! So, what else do I need? A bakeware set and some utensils to go with the cookware? Of course. It took me a while, having to call upon my childhood Price Is Right experience, but I shopped around a put together the most useful and needed group of "stuff" while trying to get above the required amount to qualify for the extra gift card...but not too much above the amount!
I did it! I got my cookware, bakeware and utensils and made the investment not only in my first "adult" cookset but it's really and investment in myself. It's my commitment to learn more about cooking, baking and food.